


To the Salt and Sea

by hetzi_clutch



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, F/F, Romance, basically what the summary says, long deep conversations, thorsair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 06:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19847599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetzi_clutch/pseuds/hetzi_clutch
Summary: After a few drinks, the Doctor is having trouble finding her TARDIS. She gets a little help from an old friend.





	To the Salt and Sea

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based on literally the two pages of the comics with the corsair, so please forgive my characterization if it's off entirely. Also idk how this got so angsty, whoops
> 
> Oh, and the title is taken from 'Drunk Walk Home' by Mitski. I thought it was apt.

She doesn’t usually get drunk, but she did this time.

It’s one of those nights. The fam is in Sheffield taking the day, or maybe two, they haven’t decided yet, and the weight of that ‘maybe two’ hangs over the Doctor’s head. What if it turns into three, or a week? Or a goodbye?

She doesn’t think it will, but then, humans have such short lives. They have to get on with them sometime. And the fear that that ‘some time’ will be sooner than she thinks lingers at the back of her mind, clouding her thoughts.

She doesn’t jump ahead like she usually does. Instead, she goes to get a drink.

Turned out to be seven, or maybe eight, and now she’s weaving back to the TARDIS through alien backstreets, making at least three wrong turns, she’s pretty sure, and wondering where it all went wrong.

That’s a bit dramatic, seeing as it hasn’t strictly gone wrong yet, but the fear sits ever present in her stomach despite. She can’t remember how to pick up friends other than falling through the roof of a train, and she doesn’t want a repeat of  _ that _ . What she does want is another drink, but the bartender had rudely cut her off, and she’s too lost to figure out how to find another place.

“I could show you.”

Fingers brush her sleeve, catching her just as she realizes she’s falling. They hoist her upright, spin her around—oi,  _ rude _ , her stomach protests—and set her in front of a face both strange and unfamiliar. She stares, then squints.

“Is that— _ Corsair _ ?”

The Corsair laughs, and the Doctor gapes, so surprised all she can do is take her in. She’s a woman this time around, with olive skin and dark hair done up in two small buns, the rest flowing freely down her back. She’s got an unfair height difference too, and an outfit that—

The Doctor blinks again. “You look like a pirate.”

The Corsair laughs, throaty and deep. “Oh, you’re one to talk. Trying to tell me something, Doctor?”

Her hand brushes over the Doctor’s shirt then moves to her shoulder, keeping her steady despite the way she sways. A beat later, the Doctor realizes that it’s she who’s swaying, not the Corsair. 

“Trying to tell you something,” the Doctor mumbles. Right. There had been something. Only she couldn’t remember it now. “What ‘m I trying to tell you?”

The Corsair laughs again and pulls her close, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. 

“Come on, Doctor. Let’s get you back to your ship.”

They stumble together through back alleys the Doctor has long since given up on recognizing. Or rather, the Corsair drags her along, cursing occasionally as the Doctor tries to give up entirely.

“Least you’re easy to drag this time,” she mutters as the Doctor sags once more, sort of on purpose into her arms. They’re strong, and comforting, and it’s unfair that every regeneration she seems to get the height. 

At those words however, she rears her head.

“Hey! I’ve always been—easy to drag.” She frowns, because it wasn’t what she’d intended, or at least not how she’d intended it to sound, but the Corsair just laughs.

“Don’t I know it, Doctor.” She hoists her up again, and they make it a few steps in silence, turning down another alleyway which only serves in making the Doctor dizzy. There couldn’t be so many alleyways in one damned city. It had to be illegal.

“So, what’s got you down this time?” The Corsair’s words cut through her thoughts, and the Doctor raises her head groggily, tries to pull some sense of memory back to the forefront. 

“Uhh...my friends. That’s the ones. My friends left me. I mean, they didn’t, but they might, you know?”

When she looks up, the Corsair just looks bemused. “ _ That’s _ what you’re worried about? Doctor, you’re traveling with humans. I presume. Haven’t you long since realized they’re like mayflies?”

The Doctor drops her chin and shakes her head, which only makes the ground she’s looking at swirl.

“M’no,” she mumbles. “They’re not mayflies, they’re brilliant. And everybody leaves anyway, it’s a rule. Like, don’t mess around with a fixed point in time.”

She snorts at her own wit, and can feel the amused disbelief echoing in the Corsair’s thoughts, through her fingertips pressing into her coat. She looks up, and she’s shaking her head.

“As if that’s ever stopped you,” she says softly, and there’s so much surprising sympathy in her eyes that the Doctor quickly glances away.

“Or you,” she mutters quickly. “S’not as if you’re much better than me.”

The Corsair chuckles. “Oh no, Doctor. I’m much worse.”

The Doctor laughs, heady and maybe a little too much—but then again, eight drinks—and raises an unsteady finger, which she wags in her direction.

“Naughty,” she says, and hiccups. “Very naughty, you’ve always been. And I—”

And then her grin falters as the words echo, a memory floating to the surface. The Corsair wrinkles her nose.

“You’re a mess,” she says. The Doctor looks away, sudden despair threading over her thoughts, so heavy she knows the Corsair has got to pick up on it. And yes, her grip tightens ever so slightly, sending a question through her thoughts.

“You’re dead in my timeline,” the Doctor says bitterly, and knows she shouldn’t have said it the minute she does, but those drinks are working their way through her system and it’s about time she acknowledge that she’s not thinking straight.

But the Corsair only laughs, the kind that the Doctor can feel rumbling through her chest, deep and amused and just a little bit patronizing.

“Doctor, you old fool,” she chuckles. “You’ve been hanging too much around humans, haven’t you? Thinking too linearly.”

She chuckles again, and shakes her head back and forth. They’ve turned a corner now and the lights of the TARDIS windows glow dimly halfway down the alley. The Doctor can’t help a slight amazement that they’re found it.

“Am I?” she says crossly, and feels the Corsair’s fingers bunch into her coat. It’s comforting, and not only because she’s not entirely sure she’s right side up anymore.

“Clearly,” the Corsair says. She glances at the Doctor, her eyes dancing with something unfathomable. “You’re dead in my timeline too, don’t you know? And yet here we are, standing outside your TARDIS. Just like old times.”

The Doctor looks up and they really are standing right outside her TARDIS, the doors shut and yet she knows, unlocked and waiting. She doesn’t open them.

“The TARDIS won’t let you in then,” she whispers. “Too much timey-wimey, she won’t like it.” 

“Your TARDIS bosses you around too much,” the Corsair says. When the Doctor doesn’t respond, she takes her by the shoulder and gently spins her around, pressing her against the doors. Before the Doctor can respond, she leans forward and catches her in a kiss, long and deep and aching of memory.

They’re both gasping when they pull apart, and the Corsair grins, crooked with mischief.

“Just like old times, yeah?” she says. The Doctor nods dizzily, but when the Corsair leans in again, reaches out to press a hand against her chest.

“Not this time,” she says softly. The Corsair stops, baffled.

“Is it because of the alcohol?” she asks. “Because I’ve had a few myself—”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Not...entirely,” she clarifies, though she knows that’s part of it. “But it’ll just make me sad in the morning.”

This time the Corsair draws away entirely. Her brow wrinkles, confusion dancing in her eyes.

“Doctor, there is no morning for us,” she says quietly. “Time Lords, remember?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Maybe I’ve gone native.”

The Corsair’s eyes roam over her face, searching for something the Doctor can’t discern, even with her hand pressed to her chest, forming the barest tendril of telepathic connection. Finally she smiles, but the mischief is gone. It’s only sad, and a little nostalgic.

“Time’s worn on you, hasn’t it, Doctor?” Before the Doctor can respond, she leans forward and presses her lips to hers once more, soft and entirely gentle. Then she pulls away, and steps back.

“That one’s to remember me by, then,” she says. The Doctor nods, and they stand there awkwardly for a moment, together and yet a foot apart. Then the Corsair gives a jaunty little salute and turns her back, leaving the Doctor to watch as she rounds the corner, disappearing into the maze of alleyways they’d only just traversed.

The Doctor stares. Her head swims. The taste of her lips lingers on her own, and she wonders if it was stupid to cut it short.

“Gone native,” she mutters. Then she reaches behind her and pushes the door handle, stumbling backwards into the TARDIS.

“Take me home, love,” she says, and she’s not sure where that is but she doesn’t particularly care. Instead she sets up against a white pillar and watches with bleary eyes as the monitor flashes coordinates to Sheffield, England.

“Take me home.”


End file.
